Act of God (23 page)

Her smile seemed upbeat. “How’s the knee brace working out?”

“I’ve gone slowly with it.”

“Like what?”

“Light Nautilus, a little stationary bicycle, and StairMaster.”

“Good. After you’ve worn the sleeve for another few days, you might try a short run, level pavement.”

“How short?”

“Oh, no more than half a mile. If there’s going to be more of a problem, you ought to know it by then.”

“Otherwise?”

“Otherwise, just keep wearing the brace continuously until you don’t need it anymore for stairs or other everyday things.”

“What about the MRI?”

“I’ve reviewed all the images, and they hold good news.”

I felt a relief that surprised me by its sheer size. “What does good news mean?”

“The X-rays showed no fractures, and now we can rule out a tear of the rotator cuff or other structural damage. I think it’s just a matter of torn muscle tissue, though there may be a wayward tendon or two.”

Wayward. Where do they go? “So, what should I do?”

“How has the anti-inflammatory worked?”

“Makes me nauseous.”

A little smile. “So you stopped taking it.”

“Yes.”

“That’s all right. It’s mainly for pain, anyway, so it’s your choice, pain or nausea. What I think you should do is go to a physical therapist.”

“What for?”

“What for?”

“Yes. If there’s no damage, won’t the muscles just … what, grow back?”

“Well, they’ll grow, all right, and mesh. But you want to minimize the scar tissue and maximize your recovered strength, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, then, the therapist can show you exercises that will help that, help you to come back sooner and sounder.”

I thought about Norm’s advice. “Okay. Can you recommend somebody?”

“I can.” She paused. “Just one thing?”

“What?”

“The pills you can skip, but the exercises, you really should do them faithfully.”

“Or else?”

“Or else you’ve wasted my time and your money.”

That was close enough to a line I’d used with clients in the past to take her word for it.

T
HE INSURANCE COMPANY THAT
carried the policies on the Proft family was headquartered in Omaha, but it had a claims investigation office in Hartford. Rather than drive the eighty miles, I got on the phone and drew a semblance of a human being named Nichols.

After outlining to him my involvement, I said, “When I used to work at Empire, we’d keep files ten years.”

A laugh. “You were at Empire?”

“Yeah.”

“Get laid off when they folded things up in Boston?”

“No. I left a while before that.”

“Huh. You’re lucky. You bailed out before there was a lotta guys looking to open their own shops. How do you like it?”

“There’s not much security, but the pay’s fine when it arrives, and you come to enjoy being your own boss.”

“Hey, I’m my own boss now, in charge of the department, anyway, and it’s not so hot. What do you get for a daily rate up there?”

“Depends on whether it’s commercial or personal.”

“Give me a range.”

I did.

Nichols said, “Be lucky to get anywhere near that down here for either kind of work. Well, let’s see now, what can I do for you?”

“Can you access your closed files, give me the name of whoever it was investigated a claim out of Quincy for you?”

“When was the claim?”

“Five or six years ago.”

“Did we pay off on it?”

“Yes.”

“Before or after litigation?”

“Nobody’s said anything about a lawsuit.”

“Then you’re fuck out of luck, pal.”

“How come?”

“Maybe—I don’t know—three years ago, company decided to shred everything was closed over three years without litigation.”

“You weren’t computerized then?”

“On the policies, yeah, but not on the investigations. See, they figured, none of our work’s ever admissible in court anyway, so why keep the stuff or pay for it to go on microfiche.”

“Accounting must have a record of your paying off on the policy.”

“Yeah, they would. But it’s not gonna have any details like who investigated. Just a claim number and the policy number and probably a picture of the cancelled check.”

“And you couldn’t access the claim by the claim number?”

“No,” said Nichols. “Not until three years back, when we—when Claims Investigation—went on-line, too.”

“Any suggestions on who might have been assigned to this one?”

“Why, because of where it came from, you mean?”

“Right.”

“Hell, no. Our adjusters and investigators, they turn over every couple of years. Half of them don’t like the work, another quarter really wanna be lawyers and leave us for school. Only mules like me stay on long enough to be Head of Claims Investigation for a region.”

Which is what I’d done at Empire. “Well, listen. Thanks anyway.”

“Sorry I can’t help you out.”

“There’s maybe something else you could check.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d like to know the status on a couple of current policies.”

“These life policies, too?”

“Yes.”

Nichols went a little sly on me. “There wouldn’t happen to be any … uh, relationship between the claim we paid out on and these current ones, would there?”

“Might be.”

“Any chance this relationship could maybe get us a shot at recovering what we paid on the first one?”

“To be honest, I doubt it.”

Nichols didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Give me the names of the insureds.”

I did.

“I gotta tap these into my terminal here. Omaha’s not bogged down, I can probably have the status in like a minute.”

“I appreciate it.”

About forty seconds later, Nichols said, “Insured: Proft, Darbra, policy number—you want all this shit?”

“Just whether they’re paid up currently.”

“Yeah, Proft, Darbra and Proft, William. Both current. Premiums billed quarterly to Nugent, Darlene. Want Nugent’s address?”

“Got it already. Beneficiaries?”

“Just crossovers. Darbra if William goes, him if she does.”

“Nothing for the aunt?”

“The who?”

“Nothing for Darlene Nugent if either Darbra or William dies?”

“No. But we’re just one company here.”

“What?”

“We’re just one company. Look in the Yellow Pages, there’s plenty of other places she could buy insurance on a relative’s life.”

A good point, but hard to check. “Thanks, Nichols.”

“Hey, don’t mention it. I ever decide to go out on my own, I’ll give you a call.”

“Fine.”

“And Cuddy?”

“Yes?”

“Looks like maybe the, uh, family relationship gives us an angle, let me know, huh?”

“I’ll try.”

“That’s all any of us can do, right?”

“Hey, what’s this, I don’t see you for a month, and now you’re back inside a week?”

He was wearing the same vest and suit pants. I gave him the benefit of the doubt on the shirt and cigar. “How are you, Mo?”

“How am I? Let me tell you how I am. I’m having a Sol Wacht—wait a minute, I already told you that one, right?”

“Right.”

“I tell you, John, it’s getting harder and harder to remember these things. The short-term memory, the doctors call it. I’m afraid I’m getting a little senile.”

“You, Mo?”

“I know, I know. It’s hard to believe. But I’m losing it enough, my wife’s afraid I’ll have Alzheimer’s for six months before she notices the difference.”

“Mo—”

“You still working on that furniture store thing?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I gotta give you credit, John.”

“Credit for what, Mo?”

“Your thing there. Your case.”

“I don’t get you.”

He waved the cigar like a conductor tuning up his orchestra. “When you were here last time, I was struggling for a story, remember?”

“I remember, Mo. The classifieds.”

“The what?”

“The classifieds. You were going through them to—”

“Oh, yeah. Right, right. The polar-bear skins, they didn’t pan out too good.”

“And they looked so promising.”

“Huh, tell me about it. But the lady just had them in her attic all this time. Never did anything about them, only knew they must have been from the former owner who’s dead lo these four and twenty years. No way to trace any of the family. Depressing, isn’t it?”

“What is, Mo?”

“Families. What the hell we talking about here? The way families drift apart. Son moves here, daughter moves there, all across the country, even the world, all this Global Village stuff. Not like the old days.”

“Right. I won—”

“The old days, the families stayed together. Not ‘nuclear,’ that’s … ‘Extended,’ that’s the word for it. The families used to be extended, John. Three, four generations under the same roof, pooling their money, watching out for each other, taking care of each other the way the family was designed to. When I was growing up in Chelsea … of course, that brings me back to it.”

I was beginning to empathize with Mo’s wife. “Back to what?”

“To my story. John, you gotta keep the thread straight here.”

“Sorry, Mo.”

“The story idea you gave me.”

“I gave you?”

“Yeah. The Irish and the Jews.”

“That—”

“Did you know the mayor of Dublin used to be Jewish? No, wait a second, that’s not the right way to phrase it. Did you know a Jew used to be mayor of Dublin?”

“I’d heard something about it.”

“Well, he did. And then there’s all this ecumenical stuff, the archbishop of this and the rabbi of that, breakfasts and lunches and—why do you suppose it’s always some kind of food, John?”

“Beats me, Mo.”

“Yeah. I ought to look into that. I had to spend a little time on the old days, unfortunately. Like how Boston was one of the biggest supporters of that Father Coughlin character from the midwest in the thirties or our own Father Feeney, out there on the Common, screaming anti-Semitic stuff at the commuters in the forties. Believe it or not, when I was young, there were lots of neighborhoods you couldn’t go, the Irish kids would chase you, stone you even, yelling ‘Kike!’ and ‘Christ-killer!’ that kind of thing. Fortunately it didn’t happen in Chelsea where I was growing up, but then we were maybe three-quarters Jewish and a lot of nice Italian kids, good families.”

“I’m glad—”

“’Course, you still got problems, like that flare-up a couple of years ago between Alan Dershowitz and Billy Bulger over the judgeship, but maybe that’s gonna happen whoever you got on one side versus the other.” He pointed at me with the cigar. “You were saying?”

“I’m glad you got a good article from it, Mo.”

“Yeah. So, you still working on it?”

“On the case?”

“Of course on the case. John, maybe you should come over to the house. The way you’re losing track here, you’d make me look good in front of the wife.”

“Actually, I was kind of hoping I could get into your morgue again, Mo.”

“How far back?”

“Five, maybe six years.”

“Let me goose one of the punks we’ve got outside, can work the computer. Get you a printout. We need an exact date or a name, though.”

“Barbra Proft.”

Mo was back in five minutes. “Had to nearly twist the punk’s arm to get him to stop what he was doing, ‘save’ his precious paragraphs, whatever ‘save’ means to the computer. Here it is.”

The sheet was a little waxy, like fax paper. The article itself was from almost six years before, just a couple of paragraphs, summarizing what I’d already been told by Darlene Nugent and William Proft. With one exception.

The name of the investigating officer from the Quincy Police Department.

Sergeant Bonnie Cross said, “Quincy wouldn’t give it to you?”

“No. They said they don’t give out the addresses or telephone numbers of retired officers, and ‘Angelo Folino’ isn’t listed in the book.”

“You tried the South Suburban?”

“And the Boston, even the West Suburban and North Suburban.”

She had a fresh box of Munchkins in front of her and reached into it, a cinnamon appearing between thumb and index finger. “He used to be a cop and he’s retired, it’s probably either the Cape or Florida.”

“For directory assistance, you still need a town.”

Cross popped the Munchkin. “So, what, you want me to get it for you?”

“It would save some time.”

“I thought that’s how you guys got paid, running up the meter.”

“Not when we don’t have to.”

She swallowed. “And if I don’t help you?”

“Then I’ll have to bribe somebody with a computer at the Retirement Board, maybe New England Telephone.”

“So I don’t just save you time, I save you from committing a crime, too.”

“Maybe a felony, all I know.”

“I have a feeling you know, Cuddy. I have a feeling you’ve looked up all these things in the General Laws, with classifications and maximum sentences and the whole nine yards.”

“A crime prevented is a crime nobody has to solve.”

“I like you, Cuddy. You’re a pain in the ass, but you’re kind of fun to shoot the shit with. Once in a great while.”

“Thanks, Cross.”

“Spell the last name for me?”

“F-O-L-I-N-O was the way the paper had it.”

“Let me make a call.”

She dialed, picking up another Munchkin, a chocolate-honey-dipped, and turning it under the light above her desk. Into the mouth before into the mouthpiece with, “Give me Detectives. … Whoever’s up there. … Right. … Holman, was it? Holman, this is Cross, Boston Homicide. … No, I don’t think we do. You want to give me a callback? … Good, I don’t have time for that kind of bullshit, either. … Look, you got anybody there goes back seven, eight years? … Yeah, I figured that. … What I’ve got is an open case here, might have some connection to one you guys had a while ago. … No, no I don’t think it went down as homicide. Accidental or suicide, but I understand the detective was on it’s retired now. … Folino, Angelo. … No, really? Thanks, that’d save some time. …” She reached for a pencil, scribbled on a pad, then scribbled some more. “Got it. … Me or a PI named Cuddy. … Yeah, insurance is mixed up in it, too. … Thanks, Holman. … Right.”